| Web Net of Competencies |
[Mar. 9th, 2009|07:48 pm] |
How Microsoft sees things... What's interesting, not the absolute values. Solutions Architects, for example, need more people (soft) skills than Infrastructure Architects. I still agree with the Microsoft's approach though.
However, I now understand more.
In Microsoft view/terms Enterprise Architects look at the architecture from the business prospective. The EAs formulate tasks for Solutions and Infrastructure Architects. In a simplified model, EAs work for the business, when other architects are providing professional services to the business.
My new blog: |
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| New Life |
[Feb. 11th, 2009|03:33 pm] |
I am moving to another blog... Well, a friend of mine recently moved to another country... so I'm quite slow compare to him.
But I also decided to change my last name; I know that it was a challenge for most of you guys to pronounce it.:)
Well, I am also changing my first name... just for fun.
My new blog is here:
http://andre.thedovgals.com/blog/ |
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| The iPhone Story |
[Dec. 14th, 2008|04:41 pm] |
It happened that a few months ago I started doing some iPhone development. Well, just for fun.
Interesting, that I haven't touched Macs for about 8 years, since the first version of OS X was launched. Back in those days, I liked the shape of the Mac on my desk and the chess program. I could not beat the highest level.:)
Well, I opened the new Mac laptop with the latest OS X installed and found out that almost nothing has changed. The environment, the UI paradigm, the tools look pretty much the same as 8 years ago.
However, I'm not taking about Macs, I want to share my iPhone development experience.
First, I was developing and testing programs on the simulator. Unfortunately, Code Warrior did not make a version for PC.:( The simulator, in fact, was quite OK. The development environment sucked, in my opinion. May be I used MS Visual Studio too much, but I had a feeling that I was developing back in early 90s in Windows 3.1 in the C language (what was the name of it? Quick C? I don't recall). The Objective C, by the way, is the worst incarnation of C++ I've ever seen. The funny thing though was that Apple did the same thing as MS with Windows CE many years ago. The OS for iPhone seems to be a stripped version of the Mac OS. They even kept some programming paradigms (like messaging) that make no sense for single-tasking OS.
Anyway, we've seen that before; I'm not complaining. I was happy about my first iPhone application... What's next.
Well, next is, obviously, to test the app on the actual iPhone. The IDE has an option for it - deploy the app on the actual device rather than on the simulator. Select, click, go!
Error message. What the heck is it saying?.. Search Google...
IN ORDER TO DEPLOY YOUR APP ON YOUR OWN IPHONE YOU HAVE TO REGISTER ON THE APPLE SITE!!! Welcome to the club. But I have already registered to download the IDE... Well, register again in a special way.
Sure. I have a lot of time and I ree-e-eally want to deploy the app on my iPhone. To show my friends, for example, what a cool developer I am.:)
Go to the Apple site, register, pay $100. WHAT? Pay a hundred bucks just to be able to deploy your own app on your own iPhone. Yeap. OK. Next time I'll buy APPL stocks. They certainly know how to make money.
Paid. The confirmation says that I will get a special certificate soon. The certificate that will enable me deploying applications on my own iPhone. Soon? When? Can I download it right now? the right answer is NO. Wait... a few business days.
Ha-ha. They must be doing a background check on me. Silly me! They were!
After a week or so, I decided to access Apple site as a registered developer a got a message "We are having trouble identifying you". OK, I now want to access their customer support. Unfortunately, there is no e-mail address for that on the Apple site. But you can find a special (secret) page and type in your question and press Submit.
Surprisingly, I received an e-mail next day, saying that my address that I used to register as an Apple developer and the billing address on my credit card that I used to pay for being able to deploy my own app to my own iPhone DON'T MATCH! Now I have to fax a notarized copy of my any GOVERNMENT ISSUED ID to Apple and everything will be hunky-dory.
Believe it or not, I did. Probably, because I used to be a scientist, and one of the first rules I learned was to complete experiments. I paid another $50 to the notary public and in a couple of days....
Hoooooooray!
I can now deploy my own app to my own iPhone!!!!!
Well, I also need to complete a good dozen of steps to download a certificate, to upload my iPhone ID, to register myself as a member of my development team (and to receive two e-mails; one e-mail as an admin, and one as a team member), etc., etc.
Actually, I have to perform a couple of steps for every new application I'm developing. To tell you the truth, I enjoy it. At least they don't ask me to pay another $100 and fax my IDs to Apple. |
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| Relations and Relational Databases |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|09:25 am] |
In 1969 or a little earlier (the history does not give us an exact date) Edgar Codd proposed a notion of relational model of databases. He based the model on a relational algebra, which I believe existed before Codd. However, I could not find who actually invented relational algebras, shame on me.
The focal point of relational databases is a notion of a relation. We may even say that, by definition, the relational database is a database that has relations. The next logical question would be: "What is a relation?"
Well, I am a Microsoft guy, whether I like it or not. This is not because of my choice, rather because of the lack of choice... So I decided to search Microsoft help to learn about relations. I found a few examples.
When you work with datasets in Visual Studio, there is an option to set up a relation. The pop up window suggests that the relation relates tables in your database. So far so good. That's what most people believe - relations relate tables.
Next example comes from materials on Microsoft Dynamics AX (not really something I like, just happened to be on top of the search result list). "The foundation of Microsoft Dynamics AX is the relational database. This relational model is represented in the Microsoft Dynamics AX development environment. This means that relationships can be created between tables that contain related data. In Microsoft Dynamics AX, the relationship between tables is called a relation."
And one more example, the SET RELATION command from Visual FoxPro, according to the help, "establishes a relationship between open tables so that moving the record pointer in the parent table moves the record pointer in the child table."
I think that this is enough. The relation is a relationship between tables. Ask your friends, DBAs and other database people. They all will say that "a relational database is the one that allows joins", or "the one that has foreign key", or in other way they'll express that relationships relate tables.
Right?
Wrong!
So, what is a relation? Let's consider the Taller relation. It means that two persons are related that way, if one is taller than the other. How would you define this relation? First of all let's define on what set of data we use this relation. Say, it's people in your family. The simplest way to define the relation would be to list all people in your family in pairs, with the taller person being list first, for example,
(father, mother)
(father, son)
(mother, son)
OK, that was easy... Let's consider another example. Consider that you are dealing with invoices for your company, and invoices have different attributes, such as invoice#, date, customer name, and amount. How do these attribute relate to each other? To describe this relation you also could list all possible attribute values from your actual invoices. You may get something like:
(2002-12-01.01, 2002-12-01, ABC Inc., $3,000)
(2002-12-01.02, 2002-12-01, Scuba Diving Corp., $25)
(2004-05-12.01, 2004-05-12, ABC Inc., $300)
Each of these sets is called a tuple. All of them together describe a relation that we may call "My company invoices".
Well, here we go. A relation is, by definition, is a set of unique tuples. Tuples cannot be same in one relation.
If you want to go more into details, you may want to know that sets of values of each attribute are called domains. You may consider domains as a generalization of data types. An a relation is a subset of a direct (Cartesian) product of all given domains.
However, let's get back to databases. Does not the set of tuples in our invoices example reminds you something? yes! Right! It looks like a table.
It is a table!
So, what is a relation? A relation is a table! We just need to notice that all rows (tuples) must be unique in the table. And therefore,
A relational database is a database that consists of tables.
Funny, right? :)
P.S. Oh, by the way, how do you call relating tables, joins, foreign keys, etc? Relationships. Not relations. |
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| Vancouver Tech Fest 2007 |
[Feb. 25th, 2007|03:41 pm] |
Yesterday I presented "SSNS 2005" at the Vancouver Tech Fest 2007. Relatively small audience (about 60-80 people), very friendly. What I found amazing that nobody in the audience had a SSNS (even 2000) experience. Therefore, I was making the presentation slower that I expected, and one hour was obviously not enough.
Here the link:
http://www.andreiko.com/DesignPatterns/vancouvertechfest2007.htm |
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